Colin Kaepernick is still fighting – for justice and for his football career

Tonya Mosley (0:00)

This is Fresh Air, I'm Tonya Mosley. 10 years ago, quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem before a San Francisco 49ers game, protesting police brutality against black people. He said he wouldn't stand to show pride in a flag for a country that oppressed people of color. Within days, he was the most talked about athlete in America, and after that season, he never played another NFL game.

Kaepernick later filed a grievance accusing NFL owners of colluding to keep him out of the league and later reached a settlement. He went on to found the Know Your Rights Camp and a publishing company, and co-created a Netflix series with Ava Duvernay about his childhood. He became a father, and through all of it, he kept training for another shot at the NFL, a shot that still hasn't come.

Over the last decade, Colin has given very few interviews. Now, he's written a memoir called The Perilous Fight, and it begins not with the protest against the anthem, but with Colin as a black child, adopted by white parents and growing up in a predominantly white town, learning about race and ways that would shape the rest of his life. Colin Kaepernick, welcome to Fresh Air.

Colin Kaepernick (1:17)

Tonya, thanks for having me on. Very excited for the conversation today.

Tonya Mosley (1:21)

Well, Colin, I'd like to actually start where you begin in the book.

You are eight years old. You are walking home from playing with friends. You are drunk on the freedom of being a kid in the summer, and you spot this group of middle schoolers inside of someone's open garage, and you decide to walk over. Can I have you pick up and read from there?

Colin Kaepernick (1:48)

Yeah.

I stopped short, and the three boys stared back at me. They were all white, like almost everybody in Turlock.

The boys exchanged words with each other, then two of them sprinted towards me. The other one went off deeper into the garage. My heart jumped as they grabbed me around my arms. Hey, what are y'all doing? They pulled me toward a large rose tree that stood next to the house. The third boy reappeared from the garage with a rope in his hands. With my back pressed against the tree, they started wrapping the rope around me. It was happening so fast, I didn't understand. All three were laughing hysterically. I began to panic and then cry.

The threads of the rope, coarse and itchy, bit into my arms. Why are they doing this? Stop! I cried out, hot tears streaming down my face. What are you doing? I thought these kids were my friends. Why are they trying to tie me to a tree?

Please stop! I shouted, the tears now clouding my vision. I felt thorns pressing into my back through the t-shirt I was wearing. Go back to Niger, n****! One of them spit out. The other two giggled in response. Just then, one of our neighbors drove by, a white man who lived on the corner.

Hey, what are you kids doing? He said, Slowing down in the middle of the street with a curious look on his face. My captors took off running, laughing the whole time.

Tonya Mosley (3:43)

Thank you for reading that, Colin. The start of a book often tells us a lot about the greater story that we're about to read and kids, for better or for worse, don't often tell their parents everything they experience. For you, a black boy adopted by white parents, you seem to instinctively know this was something you could not tell them.

What made you unsure that they wouldn't have your back?

Colin Kaepernick (4:14)

I think the experiences that I had up to that point in my life.

At a young age, I knew how teachers were engaging with me and the response there. I saw how the community would engage with me. I saw how people would treat me when I'm by myself, versus when my parents were there. And I also knew that our house wasn't one that talked about race or talked about issues or problems more broadly. And again, instinctively, as a black boy, I didn't think they would believe me. I didn't think they would have my back in that moment, because I hadn't seen that show up in that way.

And I think it's one of the things that I knew I had to get myself together before walking in that house. I went and got cleaned up, came downstairs and went about the day like nothing had happened. But it was a moment that also shaped and defined me.

Tonya Mosley (5:17)